Voting for the leader - does that happen??

Over and over, people here at dKos have been repeating the canard that "people want to vote for the winner" and that therefore, the perceived leader in the polls come election day will pick up more votes.  

This does not make sense.  Who votes this way?  Is this what happened in 2000, 1996, or 1992?  As I recall, Gore, Dole and Perot all seriously outperformed their poll numbers come election day, even though all 3 were perceived to be "losers."

I think that this perception must be based on the primaries, where partisan voters are trying to find a candidate that will win the general election.  Therefore, a candidate that begins to win early primaries may gain this "vote for the winner" support in later primaries, such as Kerry did this year.  But this is because "winnability" is a quality looked for during the primaries.  In the general election, this is no longer important, and the idea of voting for a winnable or electable candidate becomes nonsensical.

There is, however, a danger from being a perceived loser going into the election, and that is that some supporters may not turn out to vote.  This "vote for the winner" idea, however, unless there is data somewhere to support it, is not a factor.  Anyone who would vote based on who "looks like they are going to win" is much more likely to be sitting out the election.  If someone has some actual numbers to show this, I would be willing to change my view.  Otherwise, please, for the love of (insert preferred deity here), stop repeating this idea in every single open thread or polling thread!!